Triny Xiang Poet Free verse

The Back-Stage Pass Is Waiting

Is depression a band playing?
Always jeering at my brightest sets
Blows off the smallest bow leaving me a husk
Depression cat calls behind the veil

Dark days alone with my ever-present God
Hopelessly kneeling to my sad nature
A dead mane of a palm tree stripped by squalls
My rot rooted by reality's check ever on stage

Pop Seroquel to quell me to sleep
Teach me patience in this depression
Teach me the meaning of petite mort
Keep me practicing dying on stage

If not for love's tethers I would gladly exit
To my ancestors behind the ol’back stage
With my relations in line to come to Jesus
Barred by chemical prescriptions

Pop lithium and lamictal to unite polarities
Lurasidone to sway my psychosis to tunes 
Trazodone for slaying me to sleep
This time I'll stay adherent and penitent

Drugs are courage buoying stage fright
Chemical messengers knitting neurons
Exposing me to paper cuts from the crowd
Shrouding mania with suppressed dopamine

Sadness in the background overwhelms me
Remember dust to stardust gravely falling 
Those dark days twisting without love
Sex and drugs are cheap distractions

Cigarettes just crutches in the limelight
Without drink and weed on center stage
I want to go back-stage when love recedes
Then I would not feel my heart racing

Keep me above ground as life grinds on
The accretion of well-intentioned lies 
Another day another poem
Like broken records on repeat

Veils of depression weighty as curtains
Knowing doesn’t tear the thread of identity
When I cross the veil, leave it all behind
But, it's not time to go back-stage

If not for love I would cut Fate’s twine
Stay alive long enough without disguises
Endure hours naked under the spotlight 
Hold moments of joy without expectations

Confetti dismissed by peppered depression
Killing time while crooning cruelly alone
Waiting impatiently for the curtain call 
Depression waiting back-stage as usual

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Ink Empress March 17, 2024 at 9:57 PM What a sincere write this is, have you ever experienced psychosis? It definitely is not a pleasant place to be and to be prescribed with so many medicines too might not always be easy. Seroquel is one of those drugs which is so strong. I have seen so many of my loved ones go through this especially psychosis, and it definitely was scary, and challenging, i really wish mental health issues did not exist. My latest poem is also about that” black and white polarity”splitting, pleasure readin you. Powerful and very heartfelt poem this is. You are very strong Triny Xiang March 17, 2024 at 10:20 PM Thank you for considering me strong. There is humility in the strength of just being. Thanks for revisiting an old poem. How far we travel word by word.

Beata Agustin April 18, 2023 at 5:35 AM Thanks for sharing this... exposing your thoughts on depression through your unique poetic style. Welcome to Poetry Soup. I welcome you with the love of the Lord, expressed by John 3:16 of the Bible, "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.